EVEN though Moseley have negotiated them more adroitly than ever before, Kevin Maggs has hit out at the Championship play-off system that unjustifiably jeopardised the club’s second-tier status.

Compared to the two previous seasons, when Moseley lost their first three and first two matches respectively, this year’s post-season has been relatively stress-free.

Saturday’s victory over Esher was their third in four matches and although the Surrey side are not quite yet condemned to relegation, what is an established fact is the one that makes Moseley a level-two club for a seventh consecutive season.

However, as pleased as he is with the endeavour and composure his players have demonstrated in the last month, Maggs is considerably less enamoured by the current structure – both at the top and bottom of the division.

As things stand the 12-team Championship is split into two sections, with the top eight divided into two groups to decide promotion to the Premiership, and the bottom four all playing off to see which one goes down.

Moseley have been in the bottom four in each of the three seasons the system has operated – and survived each time. Not that Maggs draws much comfort from it. “How can you have eighth place going up and ninth place going down when the points difference between ninth and 12th could be 30-40 points? It’s ridiculous,” he said.

“Those are the rules and everyone has got to play to them but I do not necessarily agree either at the top or the bottom.

“When I was a player at Bath we finished top twice but didn’t win the league because we didn’t come through the play-offs. The Championship and Premiership seasons are hard slogs so if you end up at the top of the regular season you should win it.

“I understand the commercial considerations but I don’t think it is right to go too far down the southern hemisphere route.”

Thankfully, the RFU are on the brink of turning away from that and are expected to dispense with the relegation play-offs from next season, and whoever finishes bottom will go down. This year Moseley were two places and ten points clear of Esher and deserved to stay up.

“If that happens I will not be sorry to see them go and neither will a lot of teams,’’ Maggs continued. “If you are in the bottom four it puts a lot of pressure on everybody and makes everything a lot harder to do.

“Realistically the Championship should never have been cut by five teams a few years ago, nobody will admit it but they got that wrong.”